Agenda and minutes

To receive declarations of interest from Members in respect of items listed on the agenda.

There were no declarations of interest.

To consider whether the press and public should be excluded from the meeting during consideration of any part of the agenda.

There were no items that required the exclusion of the public or press.

To receive questions relating to items of business on the agenda from members of the public or press who are present at the meeting.

There were no questions from members of the public or press.

To receive communications from the Chair in respect of matters within the Commission’s remit and work programme.

There were no communications.

The Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Children and Young People’s Services, the Strategic Director - Children and Young People’s Services, the Assistant Director  - Early Help, Family Engagement and Business Support, the Interim Assistant Director – Education, the Assistant Director - Children’s social care and the Joint Assistant Director Commissioning, Performance and Inclusion attended the meeting to provide an update on performance in Children and Young People’s Services.

In introducing the report, the Strategic Director - Children and Young People’s Services provided an overview of performance in the directorate over the first nine months of 2020/21, including:

• That the direction of travel for many performance indicators across had been positive.
• How since March 2020 the service had adapted to delivering services in innovative and creative ways.
• The HMIP Probation inspection of the Youth Offending Team that had taken place in September 2020 that had resulted in a judgement of “Requires Improvement”.
• The Focussed Assurance Visit undertaken by Ofsted in October 2020, had ended in no judgement, however it was noted that the inspectors were assured of service’s response to pandemic
• A review of performance reporting across the Directorate was underway that would include a review of existing scorecards with information on Education and Inclusion performance now being included.

The Assistant Director - Early Help, Family Engagement and Business Support provided an overview of areas of performance that were going well with regard to Early Help and Family Engagement, including:

·       Customer satisfaction remaining consistently high, with 100% of respondents in December rating their overall experience as “good” or “excellent”.

·       85.1% of families being contacted within three working days of being referred to the Early Help Service.

·       92.9% of early help assessments that were in-scope being completed within 45 days during the month of December. This was higher than the previous quarter where 83.3% had been completed within 45 days.

·       In December 24.2% of Early Help assessments had been completed by delivery partners, an increase from 22.3% completed in November 2020.

·       That the Troubled Families (Families for Change) payment by result outcomes being ahead of the forecast schedule.

·       The good progress that was continuing to be made against the HMIP inspection plan following the inspection of the Youth Offending Team, with over 50% of the identified actions having been completed.

The Assistant Director - Early Help, Family Engagement and Business Support provided an overview of areas for continued development with regard to Early Help and Family Engagement, including:

·       Delivering, with partners the required improvements identified by the inspection of the Youth Offending Service.

·       Maintaining a focus on the activities needed to continue achieving the combined NEET/Not Known performance.

·       Continuing the work needed towards increasing Children’s Centre registration rates for children living in the 30% most deprived areas of the Borough.

The Assistant Director - Early Help, Family Engagement and Business Support advised that he was pleased to report that the service had achieved a 100% completion rate for staff Personal Development Reviews and noted that this had been particularly important in  ...  view the full minutes text for item 155.

To consider any item(s) the Chair is of the opinion should be considered as a matter of urgency.

There were no urgent items of business.

The next meeting of the Improving Lives Select Commission take place on Tuesday 15 June 2021 commencing at 5:30pm. Venue: TBC.

The Chair thanked the members of the Commission for their work over what had been a very difficult year during the pandemic. The Chair noted how pleased she was that the Commission had been able to carry out a broad range of scrutiny work, based on its work programme in addition to scrutiny work related to the impact of the pandemic.

The Chair thanked Councillor Jarvis, the Vice-Chair for her work and support throughout the year.

The Chair thanked David McWilliams for his work as the link officer for commission and for implementing improvements to ways of working that had enabled the efficient operation of the Commission. The Chair also thanked Martin Elliott, Governance Advisor for his work in supporting the Commission and the Chair and Vice-Chair.

Resolved: - That the next meeting of the Improving Lives Select Commission take place on Tuesday 15 June 2021 at 5:30pm.